>>Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it's not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn't ask the question: What was Aragorn's tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren't gone – they're in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles?
It's really FUCKING funny that he should say this, given that his world is completely and utterly missing vital parts of real social order.
The most glaring example being that he uses, in the first chapter of the first book, the example of a nobleman executing a criminal as an example of "doing ones own dirty work". This, in the context of medieval society, is completely fucking ridiculous. Laws can only be made an executed by Kings and their appointed agents (sherrifs, constables, judges etc.). There is absolutely no functioning legal or law enforcement system in GoT, just some handwaving about "the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword" (by the way the reason this is also unrealistic in any context is that judges were busy bureaucrats, without the time to go around beheading people out in the middle of fields somewhere, they sat in offices resolving disputed about stolen cows and adultery most of their days). If you give nobility legal authority they will just go around murdering people to suit their greed or political goals without any thought for the law.
Another example is his complete misunderstanding of the feudal system and manorial system, his idea of 'lordship' is completely fucking abstract and tied to some familial heritage bullshit, in reality it was tied to the land you owned (for example, you wouldnt be "Lord Stark of Winterfell" you'd just be "Duke of the North/Winterfell", and the people that swear fealty to you would do so because you are lord of a place not of a family. And on top of that, why the fuck is everyone just "Lord Soandso"? In reality, the feudal system necessitates a tiered distribution of authority. Where are the Barons and Counts and Dukes and such? What about Earls and Bishoprics? What about chartered city burghs, with mayors and such?
Add to this his misunderstanding of scale (the Starks ruled the North for 8,000 years? Really? From Charlemagne to Columbus was 450 years).
Maybe I'm just an autistic amateur Veeky Forumstorian, but his world is completely fucking flat and lacks the depth that made actual medieval societies so damn interesting. Every time I hear someone say "his prose is shit but his world is amazing" I just laugh.